I've been curious to know how much discussion, if any, has gone in to planning a full fledged OS for Teensy 4.1. Here are my thoughts:
The 4.1 has USB, Expandable Memory, Networking, and an SD Card. It also runs at 600Mhz. Older PC's like the 486, 586, 686, and Celeron M cpu's ran at between 33Mhz to 600Mhz and had full fledged Operating Systems using around 4Mb to 32Mb of memory. The systems had (still have) dedicated lines for expansion busses, like ISA; VESA Local, etc... all usable with hardware support drivers. Even the old Dinosours (Tandy 1000/2000) had dos based and windowing style capabilities with around 1Mb to 2MB and free memory to spare, which was plenty back then, maybe even now.
I know the Teensy 4.1 is fairly new, about 3-4 years old. Not many people, probably none, have teamed up to attempt to define a Teensy 4.1 specific time slicing/multi tasking system to run like a PC for the teensy. In the sense that the Teensy would need a well defined, and documented, Kernel Core to bring a system into fruition. A BIOS (Basic Input Output System) on old PCs had dedicated ports for Keyboard, Mouse (optional), Floppy, IDE, ISA/VESA bus controllers, and display controllers like CGA/VGA.
Another thought I've had regarding a full fledged OS is that the hardware wasn't dependant on a specific OS. DOS, LINIX, XENIX, Microware OS-9, etc... were all written to make use of the dedicated hardware already in place. Even the Commodore/TRS-80 had various OS's for their hardware, and all the systems were expandable.
I know how much time and effort this would take. It would literaly be years of work, man hours, for a single developer to do something like this. It would take several developers to form a working group to define and impliment such a system.
Most of the experianced developers with the Teensy 4.1 are busy with their own projects, work, and/or running their own businesses. So I don't think it would be top priority for them. Would they even want to support a group like this? Probably, but they might not partake in the development. Is this already in the works behind the scenes? Has this already been discussed and scrapped? Is there enough of a user base to even attempt this? A group would need a good understanding of all the inner working and hardware already on the Teensy 4.1.
I would assume the first step is to define a memory management system where specific data about the system is kept, and a means to alter that data based on hardware attached to some sort of bus, like input type ( MOUSE/KEYBOARD/Button Set ); Output type (Display/SERIAL/File); MEMORY Available; etc...
I think the Teensy 4.1 is fully capable of all this and probably more, but... not one person has the time to do all of this, it would take a well established team of volunteers to get things started before recieving major support. Focus would have to be kept on Teensy 4.1 with atleast 8MB RAM to get it started. License type/s would also need to be considered. Some type of contractual agreement would probably be needed, just to prevent a group member from running off with code and claiming the system causing support requests to the group for unknown software.
Could it be as simple as paying the top developers on the forum through crowd funding? How much would it cost? I am willing to pay something, not the whole shebang. After all, the teensy does have mechanisms to lock software, why not an OS as is normal today...
I don't expect any of the above to happen, although it would be awesome! Maybe I am just dreaming... I would like to know what everyone else thinks, including any/all the experianced Teensy devs who may, or may not, have any opinions/facts about this.
The 4.1 has USB, Expandable Memory, Networking, and an SD Card. It also runs at 600Mhz. Older PC's like the 486, 586, 686, and Celeron M cpu's ran at between 33Mhz to 600Mhz and had full fledged Operating Systems using around 4Mb to 32Mb of memory. The systems had (still have) dedicated lines for expansion busses, like ISA; VESA Local, etc... all usable with hardware support drivers. Even the old Dinosours (Tandy 1000/2000) had dos based and windowing style capabilities with around 1Mb to 2MB and free memory to spare, which was plenty back then, maybe even now.
I know the Teensy 4.1 is fairly new, about 3-4 years old. Not many people, probably none, have teamed up to attempt to define a Teensy 4.1 specific time slicing/multi tasking system to run like a PC for the teensy. In the sense that the Teensy would need a well defined, and documented, Kernel Core to bring a system into fruition. A BIOS (Basic Input Output System) on old PCs had dedicated ports for Keyboard, Mouse (optional), Floppy, IDE, ISA/VESA bus controllers, and display controllers like CGA/VGA.
Another thought I've had regarding a full fledged OS is that the hardware wasn't dependant on a specific OS. DOS, LINIX, XENIX, Microware OS-9, etc... were all written to make use of the dedicated hardware already in place. Even the Commodore/TRS-80 had various OS's for their hardware, and all the systems were expandable.
I know how much time and effort this would take. It would literaly be years of work, man hours, for a single developer to do something like this. It would take several developers to form a working group to define and impliment such a system.
Most of the experianced developers with the Teensy 4.1 are busy with their own projects, work, and/or running their own businesses. So I don't think it would be top priority for them. Would they even want to support a group like this? Probably, but they might not partake in the development. Is this already in the works behind the scenes? Has this already been discussed and scrapped? Is there enough of a user base to even attempt this? A group would need a good understanding of all the inner working and hardware already on the Teensy 4.1.
I would assume the first step is to define a memory management system where specific data about the system is kept, and a means to alter that data based on hardware attached to some sort of bus, like input type ( MOUSE/KEYBOARD/Button Set ); Output type (Display/SERIAL/File); MEMORY Available; etc...
I think the Teensy 4.1 is fully capable of all this and probably more, but... not one person has the time to do all of this, it would take a well established team of volunteers to get things started before recieving major support. Focus would have to be kept on Teensy 4.1 with atleast 8MB RAM to get it started. License type/s would also need to be considered. Some type of contractual agreement would probably be needed, just to prevent a group member from running off with code and claiming the system causing support requests to the group for unknown software.
Could it be as simple as paying the top developers on the forum through crowd funding? How much would it cost? I am willing to pay something, not the whole shebang. After all, the teensy does have mechanisms to lock software, why not an OS as is normal today...
I don't expect any of the above to happen, although it would be awesome! Maybe I am just dreaming... I would like to know what everyone else thinks, including any/all the experianced Teensy devs who may, or may not, have any opinions/facts about this.